Yantis said he had not spoken to Springfield city officials about the museum’s new plans. A city spokesman could not be reached Wednesday night.

A new board of directors took over the museum in January, and Yantis, himself a veteran of Korean service, was hired in February.

“When I walked in the door, I was told a decision had been made to explore all our options,” Yantis said.

Plans were announced in 2006 for the Korean War museum to be built on the northwest corner of Fifth and Madison streets. The museum previously was in Rantoul, but organizers said at the time the idea was to take advantage of tourism generated by the nearby Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum.

At one point, groundbreaking was scheduled for next month, but Yantis said in April fundraising had fallen short and a construction timetable was still indefinite.

The museum submitted its Navy Pier proposal – for a 7,000-square-foot facility that Yantis said would blend traditional, “experiential” and interactive museum experiences – in late April, he said. Advocates were told then to expect an answer in six to eight weeks, Yantis said, which could mean a decision in the near future.

Springfield is not out of the running as a potential museum site if Navy Pier turns down the proposal, Yantis said.

“We’re not closing any doors,” he said. “We’re going to explore every option. And none of this is going to happen overnight anyway.”

However, Yantis also told Fox News, which first reported the Navy Pier plans, that Lincoln tourists aren’t necessarily interested in visiting a Korean War museum and that the Korean War facility hopes for more year-round visitation than Springfield enjoys.

Meanwhile, however, Yantis said the museum is upgrading the existing Denis J. Healy Freedom Center, a small museum and gift shop in the former Osco Drugs storefront on the south side of the Old Capitol Plaza.

Nicolaas Kitsch, an Army veteran with museum experience and a history student at the University of Illinois Springfield, was recently hired as managing curator at the Healy Center.

“He’s going to try to plus things up, make the visitor experience better,” Yantis said. “We’re doing all the things we can and should be doing in Springfield.”

The new museum board – whose president is Healy, a Korean War veteran and member of the founding family of Turtle Wax -- has had to overcome what Yantis called “legacy challenges” left by the previous administration, Yantis added.

“The organization is in vastly better condition than it was four months ago,” he said.